In my opinion, Son Rise and the Options Institute is a big culty, have you seen their website? Scary! They also REFUSE to publish any outcome data other than parading Raun as their one and only proven success. I'm sure it does help to a certain degree, especially as it is 1:1 and intensive but I disagree with copying stims etc with a young child, before they have learnt anything much. I do it now sometimes with DS, to kind of take away the excitement for him of doing it and to show him how silly it can look (that's my theory!) but if I had done this when he was very young I think he would mostly have just ignored it or maybe got confused. Instead we chose to TEACH him. Anyway, I asked a parent on another list I belong to if I could post his experience here (have taken any names etc out). BTW, you can probably tell the other list is an ABA list, hence the comparison to ABA in particular but what he says is interesting anyway:
"Son-Rise, Big White Teeth, Rah, Rah & give us all your money - LONG!
OK, you've guessed from the title that this isn't going to be a 100%
endorsement of Son Rise.
Before finding ABA we did Son-Rise for about 5 months, albeit somewhat
half-heartedly. Once we changed to ABA our son learned loads more in five weeks
than the five months we spent on Son-Rise.
We attended the Son-Rise Startup Programme in January 1998, one week course,
GBP600.00 PER PERSON!!!! (This is 6.5 years ago so no idea what it costs now).
About 300-350 people on the course. Taking into account even Concorde air fares
for the 6-8 of them that came over that still leaves a pretty tidy profit
(circa 150K???) for one weeks work by my maths.
Most of the mornings were "talks" by Barry Neil Kaufman aimed at cementing his
hold on the audience by using psychological break down and rebuild techniques.
Lots of writing letters to our children, putting their pictures on the walls,
weeping, etc, etc. Basically (in my humble opinion) taking advantage of very
vulnerable people whose children had been recently diagnosed by creating a
controlled mass hysteria session. I've never joined a cult and I am not
suggesting that Option is a cult, but it struck me that it would resemble the
techniques used by any successful cult leader to gain control over his
audience. Barry, or Bear as he likes to be called (believe it!!) , also spent a
reasonable amount of time slagging off Lovaas. He'd pick various one-sentence
extracts from Lovaas' Me Book (especially the physical aversive stuff) to show
what an evil man Lovaas is! When one or two ABA literate individuals said that
they felt he was being disingenuous given that the book was written over 30
years ago when society regarded physical aversives as a integral part of
schooling, he put them down hard, in front of the whole audience. He had the
mike, they didn't, and he used it to his full advantage. I'd like to say he
left me cold but he didn't; he left me infuriated that I'd spent so much money
on what for me was a hard sell sales pitch for further programmes and I was
paying handsomely to listen to it! Basically the mornings were a waste of time
and money; I wished I'd stayed in bed!
The afternoons were a little more useful. Video examples of how their technique
can be applied, etc. Nina Kaufman (yes it's a family business!) was quite
interesting and informative. Came away with some good ideas but still a lot of
"rah, rah and give us all your money". GBP600 per day didn't include lunch of
course so we ended up eating locally. In the hallway approach to the auditorium
their were posters up explaining how we could give them some more money to help
the poor people who couldn't afford to come on the course!
We were offered "small group consultations" about specific subjects. These
"small groups" turned out to be 20 or 30 or so people at a time! I seem to
remember they cost around GBP 25-50 each and lasted about 60-90 minutes. Again,
work out the maths guys!
What is Son-Rise? Someone once described it as "the herbal tea and crystals"
approach to intervention with autistic children. I'd have to agree but adding
"very expensive" in front! It essentially comprises intensive 1:1 therapy with
the child (not a bad thing) along with psychological help for the parents to
improve their power of positive thinking (again not a bad thing). The
intervention itself however is essentially child led play therapy. The basic
premise of totally child led therapy for autistic kids doesn't work in my view
through bitter experience. I spent several months following our son around,
copying the circuits hid did then which achieved very little other than leaving
me feeling like a jerk! I was supposed to join him in what he wanted to do
rather than show him what I wanted. I'm not convinced he even knew I was in the
same room as him! I'm sure child-led therapy works exceptionally well for
children who have learning difficulties but still have the natural desire to
interact with others. Autistic kids mostly don't have this desire, they have a
"can't learn, won't learn" attitude and are far happier in their own little
world. My son is now a happy go lucky 10 year old, just started middle school
and to the casual observer is no different from any of the rest of the kids.
But it's ABA that got him there, not Son-Rise.
To summarise?
-
Son-Rise is worth a read. By all means buy (or preferably borrow) the books
and have a read. Nothing in this world is black and white and I am sure you
will get something out of it. For all my complaining, I did get something out
of Son-Rise, but mostly from the books not the incredibly expensive start up
course.
-
Child-led play therapy has something to offer kids with autism as a
complement to ABA but it definitely does not replace ABA by any means
whatsoever.
-
You can learn about child-led play therapy a hell of a lot cheaper and
probably more effectively than going on the Son-Rise programme. Read books on
the Hannan Method for a start.
-
Given that The Option Institute is "non-profit making", where does all the
money go?
All of the above is my own humble opinion, being an enthusiastic amateur, by no
means a professional. That said, it is an honest account of my personal
experiences. Others may have had a much more positive experience of Son-Rise."